by Sarah Long
Oh dear, are you better now?
Yes, it was just a one-day thing. But I’ve got the hockey dinner tonight so I don’t know when I’m going to get this essay done.
I’m sure you’ll manage. I’m at Broadway Tower.
Awesome. Can’t wait to turn into you and have nothing to worry about. X
Tessa put her phone back in her pocket. She couldn’t very well tell Lola that actually she did have something to worry about, that she was wondering whether to leave her father and start again with somebody else. Somebody Lola didn’t know and would never come to accept. Somebody who would rip the heart out of their family unit.
Just time for one more cigarette, then she would go back and meet them at the car. This time it tasted sour and the hit was less intense. She remembered how ultimately disappointing smoking was. You always wanted another one and it was never quite enough. And it made you smell. Luckily she had a packet of Tic-Tacs to neutralise the taste.
But nothing could get past Matt’s overdeveloped senses.
‘Have you been smoking?’ he said as she slipped into the back seat beside him.
‘Course not!’
‘Don’t lie, I can smell it.’
‘Must have been Sandra when she borrowed my coat last night to go out for a fag.’
‘You’ve got a very sensitive nose,’ said Harriet, starting the engine, ‘I hope you’re not bothered by the dogs.’
‘I’ve always thought I should have worked for a perfume house,’ said Matt. ‘I would have been a brilliant nose. Or a wine expert, I’m always the first to pick up the peaty undertones and heather notes. Don’t you find that you’re always wishing you’d done something else? I know I do, I’m constantly thinking I should have followed a different career path, keeps me awake at night that does.’
‘Infinite regrets,’ said Tessa. ‘Do buck up.’
‘Look on the bright side,’ said Harriet, ‘at least you’re not an unemployable housewife.’
‘I’ve got one of those as well. Bloody unfair, don’t you think?’
Here we go again, thought Tessa.
‘I’ll be earning my keep tonight,’ she said. ‘De-boning that quail.’
‘I sympathise, Matt,’ said Nigel. ‘But you have to remind yourself that there is no ideal job. You need to bundle up those negative thoughts and push them to one side. That’s what my therapist Paola has taught me, I can’t tell you how much she’s helped me.’
*
Back at the house, it was agreed that lunch would be a mistake, but Sandra’s home-made muffins with a cup of tea would be just the thing. They grouped round the fire with plates on their knees, making appreciative noises.
‘Nice muffins,’ said Tessa, ‘can’t think why you’d want to ruin the taste with tea.’
‘You’re a freak,’ said Sandra, ‘everyone loves tea in this country.’
‘Not me. Pale and insipid. Not to mention the leaden jokes. Lesbian tea. Builders’ tea. Could stand a spoon up in that! Ha bloody ha.’
‘You’re grumpy,’ said Matt, looking up from his newspaper. ‘I’m just reading here about how middle-aged women don’t want to be married any more. Is that it, are you sick of me?’
Sandra intervened.
‘I must say that, to my shame, I used to feel a bit sorry for wives who had been left by their husbands. Now I’m quite jealous.’
Nigel shot her a look.
‘Thanks,’ he said, ‘that makes me feel good. Who wants to play Scrabble?’
He opened the box.
‘It depends on the timing,’ Sandra went on. ‘It’s one thing when you’ve got a young child, but once they’ve grown up, you’ve got to ask yourself what’s the point in being married.’
‘Companionship,’ said Matt. ‘Someone to blame when things go wrong. Regular sex.’
He had finished his muffin and had moved on to a bowl of crisps. Tessa was transfixed by the noise he was making as he made his way through them. She stared at him, busy jaws working like a greedy rabbit, chomp, chomp, chomp. One of the pugs was snaffling up the pieces as they fell to the floor, wheezing and salivating. He’d already worked his way round the room, cleaning up the muffin crumbs.
‘I’ll play, Nigel,’ she said.
‘And me,’ said Harriet.
‘Loads more muffins if anyone wants them,’ said Sandra. ‘I’m going to check out that antiques shop down the road. ‘I’m determined to embrace vintage. It’s so cheap, if I had a big barn I’d fill it with old brown furniture, it’s bound to come back up.’
‘What’s the difference between vintage and antique?’ asked Matt, between mouthfuls. ‘Am I right in thinking vintage just means any old shit?’
‘Pretty much,’ said Sandra. ‘Come with me, if you like.’
‘OK.’
Matt jumped up and went over to Tessa, but stopped just as he reached her.
‘Oh! I was about to kiss you, but then I noticed you’ve got a blueberry stuck between your teeth and I was slightly repulsed.’
He turned round and followed Sandra out into the street, then banged on the window.
Tessa looked up and saw him grinning through the leaded glass, pointing to his teeth.
She ignored him.
‘You go first then, Nigel,’
They settled into a competitive rhythm. Nigel was a tactical player who appeared to have swallowed the entire Scrabble dictionary of obscure two-letter words. This sat badly with Harriet’s sense of fair play.
‘You can’t have “jo”! And what is “za” supposed to mean?’
‘Diminutive of pizza, trust me, it’s in the book. And “jo” is Scottish for darling.’
‘Well I’m not sure about this. In my opinion, you shouldn’t be allowed any word that you don’t use in normal conversation.’
‘It’s in the book,’ said Nigel, ‘you can’t change the rules to suit yourself.’
He won by a safe margin, and Tessa left them arguing about opposing theories of the game while she attended to the subtle butchering of the quail: removing their frail bones to reduce their tender bodies to small parcels of flesh.
She no longer felt the intense pleasure she used to find in preparing food. It would be different in the wild; hunting and capturing your prey, tossing it on the fire to ensure your survival. Now it just seemed frivolous and decadent.
She knew she was facing a choice. To continue her role as nurturer, channelling her refined skills into feeding the one last baby still in her care, the resentful provider who found her plump and lazy. Or she could be brave and magnificent, walk out of this tired old marriage into the unknown with a man she barely knew, but who worshipped the ground she walked on. She inserted the point of the Global blade (it was essential to bring your own knives, you couldn’t trust other people’s) into the breast of the bird and thought about sex with John. The intensity of it, the feeling that this was all that mattered, that everything else was peripheral compensation for those who weren’t getting it.
‘Do you need a hand?’
Harriet was in the doorway, concerned face, cashmere twinset with a double string of pearls, the walking embodiment of someone who wasn’t getting it.
‘No, I’m alright thanks.’
An American friend of hers had made her laugh once, recounting how she had offered her sexual services to an attractive estate agent. Or a realtor, if you wanted to make him sound more glamorous, and he was the MD, as the friend had pointed out, not a jobsworth in a shiny suit. ‘I knew he’d say yes,’ she said, ‘because I’d met his wife and she had one of those handbags like the queen has, that sits on the table with hoop handles. You know that anyone married to a woman with a bag like that isn’t getting any sex.’
Harriet had many such bags.
*
Tessa was woken the next morning by a piercing scream.
She nudged Matt.
‘What was that?’
He grunted and rolled over.
‘Didn’t you hear it?’
/>
She was out of bed in an instant, throwing on her dressing gown and running down the stairs.
She followed the sound of sobbing to the kitchen, to find Harriet crouched over one of her pugs, who was lying on the floor.
‘Benson! Oh no, no . . .’
Tessa was no animal-lover but she could see this was a tragedy. The dog was panting noisily, his eyes glazed over, making no response to Harriet’s increasingly distressed attempts to revive him.
‘He’s eaten something. I don’t know what’s happened, he’s never been like this before . . .’
Beside him was an empty cake tin, the lid dislodged, crumbs scattered on the floor.
‘The muffins,’ said Tessa. ‘Sandra put them on that low shelf, he must have got into the tin.’
She was always appalled by the way Harriet’s dogs helped themselves to any food that was within reach. Like the pigs she’d seen in Thailand, cleaning up the floor beneath the huts, eating scraps of food and, worse, the effluent of the primitive lavatories.
‘We need to get him to a vet,’ said Harriet. ‘The number’s by the phone, can you fetch it for me?’
Tessa went through to the hall, where she found a list of useful numbers, neatly copied out in Harriet’s careful script.
‘Here you are,’ she said, bringing in the phone and the list. ‘Do you want me to call?’
‘No, give it to me.’
Tessa listened to her describing the symptoms, and remembered when she had made a similar call. In the middle of the night when Lola was four years old and she’d been terrified it was meningitis. Shining a light into her eyes and seeing if she could move her chin down to her chest. Thankfully her fears had been ungrounded.
Harriet put the phone down and stood up.
‘I’m taking him in now, they think it was the xylitol, that sugar substitute that Sandra used.’
Tessa put her arm round her friend.
‘It’ll be fine, they’ll sort him out.’
‘I hope so, but look at him, poor Benson.’
He didn’t look good, lying completely motionless apart from the rise and fall of his difficult breathing. Tessa was less hopeful than she let on.
‘They’ll be able to do something. Come on, I’ll go with you, let’s get dressed.’
‘Will you? You are kind.’
‘Of course, let’s go.’
‘Emergency trip to the vet,’ she said to Matt as she hastily pulled on her clothes in the bedroom. ‘Looks like Sandra’s killed the dog with her diet food.’
Matt raised his head from the pillow.
‘Really? Which one?’
‘Benson. Still breathing, but looking pretty comatose.’
‘No change there, then.’
‘Don’t be horrible. I admit he’s not my favourite animal, but poor Harriet.’
‘You’re taking her car, presumably?’
‘Yes, don’t panic. I’m not going to risk soiling the Mazza with death fluids.’
Two hours later, Tessa escorted Harriet back to the car. The vet said he’d keep him overnight for observation, and would call if there was any change. Tessa was still reeling from the costs involved.
‘I’m not being funny, but you could check him into the Lygon Arms for that amount. Four-poster suite.’
‘No, that’s not funny,’ said Harriet, ‘but I know you’re only trying to cheer me up.’
Tessa decided not to share her thoughts about how many children could be lifted out of poverty for the price of a critical care package for one domestic animal.
‘There’s nothing more you can do,’ she said, ‘you should try to get some rest. Do you want to ring Sam?’
‘I already have, he’s coming down later. So you won’t need to stay the night.’
‘If you’re sure. Matt needs to get back for work, but you know I’ll stay if you need me.’
‘Thanks.’
Harriet squeezed her hand.
‘I do appreciate it.’
She wiped her eyes.
‘I know it’s silly, but you get so attached . . .’
Having a pet was a recipe for heartbreak, thought Tessa as they drove back to the house. Cradling the dog on her lap on the way to the vet, she had given silent thanks for not caving in to Max and Lola; it could only ever end one way. Just do the maths; you were buying a ticking time bomb when you brought home that adorable little puppy with an average life expectancy of fourteen years. They said it was good for children, to give them an early experience of loss, a sort of bereavement lite, to rehearse the pain that was waiting down the line. Tessa didn’t buy it, there was enough sadness in the world without voluntarily adding to it.
Sandra opened the door to them.
‘Harriet, what can I say? I’m so, so sorry.’
Harriet shook her head.
‘Don’t be silly, how were you to know? I just don’t understand how they’re allowed to sell the stuff.’
‘And there was me banging on about this great product with no calories. I feel terrible, really I do.’
‘I said it’s OK.’
‘Just goes to prove, really, that I’m not cut out for baking. Poison-fingered witch.’
‘If you’d just thought to close the lid on the box properly,’ said Harriet, ‘there’s no way he could have knocked it off if it had been tightly fitted.’
‘I know, I’m really sorry.’
‘This isn’t something I usually say,’ said Tessa, ‘but I think we could all do with a cup of tea.’
*
‘Well, that was an unfortunate end to the weekend,’ said Matt as they set off, ‘a dead dog and service restored to my phone, with a load of messages I could do without.’
‘He’s not dead yet.’
‘No, but I’m not optimistic for the prognosis. Liver failure can’t be good news.’
‘Poor Harriet, she’s so upset. At least she’s got the other one. Maybe she’ll get a new one to go with it.’
‘And so the cycle continues, the relentless bind of pet ownership. I’ve never understood why you’d want to saddle yourself like that. Especially retired people, they’ve got time to go anywhere they want, instead of which they choose to walk to the end of the street twice a day to let the dog have a shit.’
‘I suppose we’re just not pet people.’
‘One of our shared non-interests. Mind you, Colin at work recently got a dog and said it’s the most amazing fanny-magnet. He’s never had so many attractive women coming up to talk to him.’
He pulled into a garage.
‘Might as well fill up before we reach the motorway.’
She watched him get out of the car and help himself to a pair of clear plastic gloves, carefully pulling them on before handling the pump. What a fastidious, feminine thing to do, she never bothered with them herself.
John wouldn’t worry about his hands smelling of petrol. He was comfortable around machines; she could just imagine him wielding a chainsaw, starting the engine with an effortless flick of the cord, whereas it was always a performance when Matt decided to trim the hedge. Leafing through the instruction booklet with a frown, cursing the bloody thing for cutting out every time, muttering about the flooded engine and faulty chain. You should have married an oily rag, he’d said to her once when she was mocking his attempts, I never claimed to be a mechanic.
Matt knocked the nozzle against the tank, to ensure he’d got the last few drops, then replaced the handle and peeled off the gloves. As he went in to pay, Tessa noticed a customer on his way out casting admiring glances at their car, checking it out as he returned to his own ordinary vehicle. Men were such babies, with their envy of other boys’ shiny toys.
She checked her phone. Nothing since the last message. She read it again.
Skype tonight, I’ve got news.
Matt was on his way back, so she slipped the phone into her bag.
‘I’ve just come up with a brilliant thing for my client,’ he said as he slid back into the d
riving seat. ‘It’s amazing how a change of scene can free you up creatively. And I do love a bit of alliteration. Listen to this: Reward, Relationship, Reassurance and Repetition. The four Rs.’
There’s a coincidence, thought Tessa.
‘Are you adding R & R to that?’ she asked.
‘What?’
‘Rest and Recreation. Make it six Rs.’
He shook his head impatiently.
‘Don’t be silly. Anyway, what do you think?’
‘Umm. Well, it’s four words beginning with R.’
‘As I said. Alliteration. And a list, always best to have a list of three or four things.’
‘So what does it mean, exactly?’
‘It’s the four Rs. The guarantees they give their customers. Good, isn’t it?’
‘I guess. How much did they pay you for that?’
‘What do you mean, how much did they pay me for that?’
He shot her an aggressive sideways look.
‘Nothing,’ she said. ‘Just wondering, in an admiring way.’
‘I get it, you’re having one of your little digs, looking down your nose at what I do, as usual.’
‘No I’m not!’
‘Yes you are, and you know what, I’m sick of it! It’s alright for you to sit there and sneer at my job, you don’t have to go out and earn the money.’
Tessa closed her eyes and wished she could be somewhere else. The scented white garden of Dursdale Hall, for example.
‘You and your supposed feminist views!’ Matt continued. ‘You’re a fake feminist, that’s what you are, living off me and doing bugger all. Why don’t you get out there and fend for yourself, like most self-respecting women!’
They continued the journey in silence, through the villages that had looked so attractive on the way up and which now appeared stern and oppressive. Stone houses on market squares gazing out disapprovingly through mullioned windows over the queue of traffic that snaked its way along roads designed for horse-drawn carriages.
‘You still not talking to me?’ asked Matt, as the M4 channelled down to two lanes after Heathrow and crawled to a standstill.
The street lights were set lower here, in deference to the planes that came swooping in overhead. On either side of the motorway were boring expanses of houses and offices. Only when they were over the Hammersmith flyover and coming into the Earls Court turn-off did you feel you were properly in London. Was she a London person, the way John claimed he wasn’t? She was inasmuch as she didn’t belong anywhere else. It was probably too late now to put down roots in a cosy community where everyone knew everyone else and the neighbours would drop round, beaming goodwill and bearing trays of mince pies.